Buying our love?

[Beersforbribes]

Wanted to get some opinions on our current holiday situation. We’re currently away at a Spanish 4* hotel, the place is pretty nice, rooms are functional but a bit outdated, food average but overall it’s been a nice stay.

The AIBU…..

We’ve been approached a couple of times now by one of the staff who I assume is the customer relations rep who has offered us free drinks if we sit down with them and write a review about our stay. Said staff member suggested that we all sit down together so they can have input into our review!

I’m all for free drinks but it feels a bit iffy! Is this normal? I’ve read through their reviews on trip advisor and 99% of them rave on about this staff member. Now we know why.

YABU - let them buy your love
YANBU - you can’t be bought with a mere pina colada (or 2)!

I would take the free drinks and would be happy to give an impartial review. I would inform the rep (while sipping my pina colada) the they will absolutely NOT have any input into what I am writing.

That would really put me off the hotel tbh. I am quite an anxious traveller and research hotels meticulously before I book. I think what they are doing is unethical.

I would decline and write a review once I got home detailing what you have said here.

Also I am sure this is a violation of most review sites. I know google are very strict with this sort of thing.

I thought it was pretty brazen tbh. But now I’ve seen the other reviews… it’s obvious lots of people have taken the bait!

I wouldn’t. Not unless I would have written them a raving five star review anyway. And I definitely wouldn’t be allowing the input of any staff members unless it was prompts along the lines of ‘what did you think of our pool? Did you like our entertainment?’ Etc

I think I’d just politely decline for now. You don’t want to be worrying about whether your soup has been spat in for making a fuss. But It would prompt me to write a very honest review the minute the plane took off.

I’d take the drinks, write the review and then edit it when I got home. I’d also flag it with the review site and probably copy in hotel management and let them know what I’d done (assuming I didn’t want to go back)

I think a lot of hotels/staff elsewhere are doing this too! I always wondered how so many reviews on sites had the whole review dedicated to "sammie from the pool bar" being amazing, with zero mention of any other aspect of the stay! This must be how they do it! I assumed staff members were setting up fake profiles.... It makes it really hard to work out if somewhere is good because you can tell there is something dodgy going on, I was never sure exactly what, I just always knew that "Sammie from the pool bar" was very unlikely to be the highlight of most people's trip.
Honestly I'd be quite moral about this, not take the drinks and write a scathing review of their practices at home.
Equally, its probably because the staff members get tips/extra bonuses from the hotel if they get mentioned in positive reviews which is not really fair and probably drives the behaviour

I would say no thanks, then review the hotel when I got back and write an honest review including telling everyone that the named person buys people drinks to write reviews.

Just do whatever you want to do. Don’t take advice from an anonymous forum. Radical concept, I know.

Cheeky bastards. I'd be writing the review on home soil in the miserable weather not in Spain on holiday. Wouldn't give them even 10 mins of my time. Politely decline

It is deception and unfair on everyone reading the reviews. Dont do it

I'd take the drink and tell them I'll do the review when I get home

Write a review when you get home and give then 1 star - mention this particular issue.

Definitely refuse, and write a factual review when you get home.

We had a similar experience on a tour on holiday last year. The reviews for it were outstanding, so we had high expectations.

It wasn't awful but it wasn't amazing - during the tour, the guide asked us all to join a WhatsApp group and badgered us incessantly to leave a positive review, telling us that their bonuses, further bookings etc relied on them getting only 5 star reviews. They also said that if we could show proof of leaving a 5 star review we'd get a free extra drink on the wine testing part of the tour.

It felt really off so we didn't bother and wrote a factual review afterwards.

Just say no to the drinks
Do you really need them?

I would write an honest review on return from my holiday. And I would mentioned that reps are giving out drinks for positive reviews.

I’d take the free drinks. But still be honest with my review!

Loads of hotels do this. They do the same thing to try and get toh to listen to waffle
about timeshares and you don’t know about it before it’s too late.

Dont waste your precious holiday time.

I saw the same happen on holiday in Morocco except the holiday reps befriended people who then gave them their phone to write the review themselves. Noticeable that so many mentioned how Sammy the rep was amazing. It made me question other TripAdvisor reviews and notice how many reviews from people who only have 1 contribution hotels have. I now ignore these and only read reviews from those who are frequent contributors. It's clear the hotels that also have staff writing reviews.